Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Cogito and Moore

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Synthese Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Self-verifying judgments like I exist seem rational, and self-defeating ones like It will rain, but I don’t believe it will rain seem irrational. But one’s evidence might support a self-defeating judgment, and fail to support a self-verifying one. This paper explains how it can be rational to defy one’s evidence if judgment is construed as a mental performance or act, akin to inner assertion. The explanation comes at significant cost, however. Instead of causing or constituting beliefs, judgments turn out to be mere epiphenomena, and self-verification and self-defeat lack the broader philosophical import often claimed for them.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Suppose Al affirms I exist, Betty affirms I exist, and Charlie affirms Al exists. Throughout the paper, I assume for convenience that Al and Betty are the ones who affirm the same proposition. But most everything I say could be adapted to other views about what unites Al’s and Betty’s judgments.

  2. See, For example, Shoemaker (1996, p. 76); Smithies (2016, 2019); Sorensen (1988, Ch. 1 and p. 388); Wedgwood (2017); Williams (1994, p. 165); Zimmerman (2008, p. 329), and Green and Williams (2011, pp. 249–250). See also Briggs (2009, p. 79).

  3. Cf. Burge (2013, p. 69), and the authors discussed below.

  4. For some optimists, see Markie (1992) and Christofidou (2013).

  5. Both strands also seem apparent in Augustine’s City of God XI, 26.

  6. See Paul (2018) for a discussion of Descartes on introspection. I use ‘introspection’ to mean receptive knowledge of particular mental states, including involuntary states like sensory perceptions.

  7. See also the more ambiguous recapitulation in the Fourth Meditation (CSM II 41).

  8. See also CSM II 409–410.

  9. See Hintikka (1962) for an attempt to distance the slogan from the introspective account.

  10. Cf. Paul (2020).

  11. See also Ayer (1953) and Williams (1978, pp. 74–77).

  12. The French text adds “or thought anything at all.”

  13. Cf. “So serious are the doubts into which I have been thrown as a result of yesterday’s meditation…” (CSM II 16). These are dialectical remarks, not substantive premises.

  14. Cf. Augustine’s City of God XI, 26: “For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? For it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am.”

  15. But see also Kenny (1968, pp. 55–56) and Longuenesse (2017, p. 76).

  16. E.g., CSM I 127 and 183–184, and especially CSM II 409–410 and 415–417—though I think some parts of the latter source plainly favor an introspective reading.

  17. The introspective account is also opposed by the method of doubt reading advanced by Broughton (2002 Ch. 7) and Curley (1978, Ch. 4). This reading breaks with a performative one, however, in holding that the truth of I exist is guaranteed directly by skeptical the hypotheses themselves. The idea is that affirming I exist is rational because any grounds for doubting it must invoke skeptical hypotheses that presuppose one’s existence—whether one affirms it or not. While I agree this reading fits some of Descartes’s writings, especially the unfinished Search for Truth, it fits the Meditations less well. For in the central Second Meditation passage, Conception Guarantee is still the advertised ultimate conclusion. Even when Deception Guarantee is considered, the Meditator emphasizes that a deceiver “will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something.” And a Third Meditation recapitulation of Deception Guarantee again says “let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something” (CSM II 25). So even when skeptical hypotheses are raised the emphasis remains on the guaranteed truth of I exist if one affirms it, with the skeptical hypotheses reinforcing the strength of the guarantee.

  18. Perhaps it could be claimed that there is simply a primitively rational transition from knowledge that a proposition is self-verifying to judgment that it is true. But without a more general explanation of why these transitions are rational, this proposal is liable to seem ad hoc. Pryor n. d. responds to an explanation that he attributes to Ralph Wedgwood, and Barnett 2016 discusses a related view.

  19. Thanks to an anonymous referee for pressing me on this.

  20. When the Meditator say I exist is true not only when conceived in his mind but when “put forward [profero],” he probably means to refer to both conceiving and uttering in speech.

  21. Cf. Hintikka (1962, pp. 18–19).

  22. See, e.g., Shah and Velleman (2005), which uses Transparency as a premise in an argument for (and explanation of) something like Evidential Support. The paper’s focus is elsewhere, but see Velleman (1989) for one author’s discussion of self-verification.

  23. Proponents of GR and related views include Barnett (2022), Gallow (2020), Podgorski (2022), and Wedgwood (2013). The immediate inspiration was Egan (2007).

  24. See also Greaves 2013, who discusses phenomena akin to self-verification and self-defeat as test cases for competing epistemic decision theories. Unlike Greaves, I want to emphasize what these theories have in common, just by virtue of being theories of decision rather than evidential support.

  25. One could replace an alethic value function with an epistemic value function, which evaluates judgments not just by their truth, but by their status as knowledge. This modification might be necessary to accommodate the alleged fact that one should not judge that one’s lottery ticket will lose. But unlike Clayton Littlejohn (2010) and Timothy Williamson (2000, Ch. 11), I think it is an idle wheel in the explanation of Moore’s paradox.

  26. Thanks again to an anonymous referee for pressing the issue.

  27. If instead belief were a necessary prerequisite for judgment, like activity in the motor cortex is a prerequisite for bodily action, then perhaps judgments could be voluntary without beliefs being voluntary. But regardless of the direction of causation, if you could judge to collect a prize, you still would have to believe. Thanks to a referee for raising the issue.

  28. Cf. Feldman (2000) and Rinard (2017, 2019).

  29. Cf. Shah and Velleman (2005, pp. 504–505), whose terminology differs from mine (esp. ‘affirm’).

  30. Cf. Velleman (1989).

  31. Cf. Barnett (2022a, b).

  32. Thanks to Ralph Wedgwood for discussion of related examples.

  33. Note that \(\Pr \left( { \sim B\left( r \right)|r} \right)\) need not be low, as can be seen when one’s evidence does not support r. See Barnett 2016 for discussion.

  34. The proposal is loosely adapted from remarks from Tyler Burge (2013, pp. 67–70), though his ultimate view seems to me to land some distance from its inspiration in the cogito. (For discussion, see Barnett n. d.) So compared to Moore’s paradox, where broader lessons for self-knowledge are widely alleged, my discussion of the cogito will be more exploratory.

  35. Cf. Burge (2013, p. 69) and Setiya (2011 p. 187), whose introspective reports on this point are far from my own.

  36. For comments and/or discussion, I am grateful to Brian Cutter, Imogen Dickie, J. Dmitri Gallow, David Hunter, Harvey Lederman, Eric Marcus, Elliot Paul, Gurpreet Rattan, Timothy Rosenkoetter, Miriam Schoenfield, Declan Smithies, Brian Weatherson, Ralph Wedgwood, Alex Worsnip, three anonymous referees, and audiences at New York University, Toronto Metropolitan University, and the Northern New England Philosophical Association.

  37. See also Greaves’s (2013) Promotion and Arrogance examples.

  38. Note that under GR, there is no guarantee that \(\Pr \left( {T||J\left( \phi \right)} \right) \ne \Pr \left( \phi \right)\;{\text{if}}\;\Pr \left( {F||J\left( \phi \right)} \right) \ne \Pr \left( { \sim \phi } \right)\). So (4) also can be satisfied if \(\Pr \left( {J\left( \phi \right) \Rightarrow F|J\left( \phi \right)} \right) + \Pr \left( {J\left( \phi \right) \Rightarrow F| \sim J\left( \phi \right)} \right) \ne \Pr \left( { \sim \phi } \right)\)

References

  • Ayer, A. J. (1953). Cogito, ergo sum. Analysis, 14(2), 27–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, D. J. (2016). Inferential justification and the transparency of belief. Noûs, 50(1), 184–212.

  • Barnett, D. J. (2022). Graded ratifiability. Journal of Philosophy, 119(2), 57–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, D. J. (n. d.) Reflection deflated. Available at https://www.davidjamesbar.net

  • Briggs, R. (2009). Distorted reflection. Philosophical Review, 118(1), 59–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broughton, J. (2002). Descartes’s method of doubt. Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burge, T. (2013). Cognition through understanding: Philosophical essays (Vol. 3). Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chan, T. (2010). Moore’s paradox is not just another pragmatic paradox. Synthese, 173(3), 211–229.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, D. (2010). Higher-order evidence. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 81(1), 185–215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christofidou, A. (2013). Self, reason, and freedom: A new light on Descartes’ metaphysics. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conee, E. (1987). Evident, but rationally unacceptable. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 65, 316–326.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curley, E. M. (1978). Descartes against the skeptics. Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Almeida, C. (2001). What Moore’s paradox is about. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 62(1), 33–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Almeida, C. (2007). Moorean absurdity: An epistemological analysis. In M. Green & J. Williams (Eds.), Moore’s paradox: New essays on belief, rationality, and the first-person. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Egan, A. (2007). Some counterexamples to causal decision theory. Philosophical Review, 116(1): 93–114.

  • Feldman, F. (1973). On the performatory interpretation of the cogito. Philosophical Review, 82(3), 345–363.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feldman, R. (2000). The ethics of belief. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60(3), 667–695.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernández, J. (2005). Self-knowledge, rationality, and Moore’s paradox. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 71(3),  533–556.

  • Fernández, J. (2013). Transparent minds. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frankfurt, H. G. (1966). Descartes’s discussion of his existence in the second meditation. Philosophical Review, 75(3), 329–356.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frankfurt, H. G. (1970). Demons, dreamers, and madmen: the defense of reason in Descartes’s meditations, reprinted 2008. Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallow, D. (2020). The causal decision theorists guide to managing the news. Journal of Philosophy, 117(3), 117–149.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibbons, J. (2013). The norm of belief. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greaves, H. (2013). Epistemic decision theory. Mind, 122 (488): 915–952.

  • Green, M., & Williams, J. (2007). Introduction. In Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First-Person, Mitchell Green and John Williams, eds. Oxford: OUP.

  • Green, M., & Williams, J. (2011). Moore’s paradox, truth and accuracy. Acta Analytica, 26(3), 243–255.

  • Hájek, A. (2007). My philosophical position says p and I don’t believe p. In M. Green & J. Williams (Eds.), Moore’s paradox: New essays on belief, rationality, and the first-person. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heal, J. (1994). Moore’s paradox: A Wittgentsteinian approach. Mind, 103(409), 5–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hieronymi, P. (2006). Controlling attitudes. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 87(1), 45–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hintikka, J. (1962). Cogito, ergo sum: Inference or performance? Philosophical Review, 71(1), 3–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, T. (2002). The rationality of belief and some other propositional attitudes. Philosophical Studies, 110(2), 163–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenny, A. (1968). Descartes: A study of his philosophy. Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kriegel, U. (2004). Moore’s paradox and the structure of conscious belief. Erkenntnis, 61, 99–121.

    Google Scholar 

  • Littlejohn, C. (2010). Moore’s paradox and epistemic norms. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 88(1), 79–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Longuenesse, B. (2017). I, me, mine: back to Kant, and back again. OUP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markie, P. (1992). The cogito and its importance. In J. Cottingham (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Descartes. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moran, R. (2001). Authority and estrangement: An essay on self-knowledge. Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul, E. S. (2018). Descartes’s anti-transparency and the need for radical doubt. Ergo, 5, 1083–1129.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul, E. S. (2020). Cartesian clarity. Philosophical Imprint, 20(19), 1–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peacocke, A. (2017). Embedded mental action in self-attribution of belief. Philosophical Studies, 174, 353–377.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peacocke, C. (2012). Descartes defended. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 86(1), 109–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Podgorski, A. (2022). Tournament decision theory. Noûs, 56(1), 176–203.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pryor, J. (n. d.) More on hyper-reliability and apriority. Available at: https://www.jimpryor.net/

  • Rinard, S. (2017). No exception for belief. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 94(1), 121–143.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rinard, S. (2019). Equal treatment for belief. Philosophical Studies, 176(7), 1923–1950.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salow, B. (2019). Elusive Externalism. Mind, 128(510), 397–427.

  • Setiya, K. (2011). Knowledge of intention. In A. Ford, J. Hornsby, & F. Stoutland (Eds.), Essays on Anscombe’s intention. Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shah, N., & Velleman, J. D. (2005). Doxastic deliberation. Philosophical Review, 114(4), 497–534.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shoemaker, S. (1996). The first-person perspective and other essays. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silins, N. (2012). Judgment as a guide to belief. In D. Smithies & D. Stoljar (Eds.), Introspection and consciousness. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silins, N. (2013). Introspection and inference. Philosophical Studies, 163(2), 291–315.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smithies, D. (2012). Moore’s paradox and the accessibility of justification. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 85(2), 273–300.

  • Smithies, D. (2016). Belief and self-knowledge: lessons from Moore’s paradox. Philosophical Issues, 26(1), 393–421.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smithies, D. (2019). The epistemic role of consciousness. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sorensen, R. (1988). Blindspots. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Velleman, J. D. (1989). Epistemic freedom. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 70, 73–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weatherson, B. (2008). Deontology and Descartes’s demon. Journal of Philosophy, 105(9), 540–569.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wedgwood, R. (2013). Gandalf’s solution to the Newcomb problem. Synthese, 14, 1–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wedgwood, R. (2017). The value of rationality. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, B. (1978). Descartes: The project of pure enquiry. Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, J. (1994). Moorean assertion and the intentional “structure” of assertion. Analysis, 54(3), 160–166.

  • Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and Its Limits. Oxford: OUP.

  • Williams, J. (2006). Moore’s paradoxes and conscious belief. Philosophical Studies, 127, 383–414.

  • Williams, J. (2007). Moore’s paradox, Evans’s principle, and iterated beliefs. In Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First-Person, Mitchell Green and John Williams, eds. Oxford: OUP.

  • Zimmerman, A. (2008). Self-knowledge: rationalism vs. empiricism. Philosophy Compass, 3(2), 325–352.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This work is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    David James Barnett

Authors
  1. David James Barnett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David James Barnett.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author have no conflicts to declare.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix

Appendix

While decision theories mostly agree on how one’s probabilities affect the rationality of an action, they disagree on precisely which probabilities do the work. According to CDT, what matters are the probabilities of counterfactual or causal relations between your options and the possible outcomes, so that for instance:

$$\Pr \left( {T\parallel J\left( \phi \right)} \right) = \Pr \left( {J\left( \phi \right) \Rightarrow T} \right)$$
(14)

EDT by contrast says what matters is the conditional probabilities Pr assigns to outcomes conditional on what options you adopt, so that:

$$\Pr \left( {T\parallel J\left( \phi \right)} \right) = \Pr \left( {T|J\left( \phi \right)} \right)$$
(15)

We saw in Sect. 6 that both theories allow a proposition ϕ’s affirmability to come apart from its probability, whenever (4) is satisfied. But they disagree about when exactly this happens. Under CDT, it happens when, for instance:

$$\Pr \left( {J\left( \phi \right) \Rightarrow T} \right) \ne \Pr \left( \phi \right)$$
(16)

And under EDT, it is when:

$$\Pr \left( {T|J\left( \phi \right)} \right) \ne \Pr \left( \phi \right)$$
(17)

This disagreement arguably does not matter for the cogito, the classic example of self-verification. Some of the details are tricky, however, especially for CDT. While decision theories are designed for conditions of uncertainty, the uncertainty is usually limited to what effects one’s options will have. Uncertainty about what options one has, much less one’s very existence, are often stipulated away. But I still think these theories are best interpreted as vindicating Cogito.

Suppose that in the context of skeptical doubt, Pr(I exist) << 1. Whatever else we say about this odd situation, it seems Pr[T| A(I exist)] ≈ Pr[I exist| A(I exist)] ≈ 1. And if so, EDT should recommend affirming, even in the absence of introspective premises or evidence supporting that one exists.

Likewise, CDT will still license affirming I exist, assuming Pr[A(I exist) ⇒ T] ≈ 1. But should we assume this? I will stick to a few telegraphic remarks aimed at the die-hards. In my view we should avoid getting bogged down in applying well-known formulations of CDT, which after all were never intended to apply to such cases. The central substantive question is whether A(I exist) ⇒ T is a backtracking counterfactual, like If Homer had asserted that he exists, then he would have had to exist. I do not think so. It is instead like the non-backtracking If Homer had asserted that he exists, he would have spoken truthfully. The crucial thing is that affirming still can bring it about that one affirms truthfully, even without bringing about the truth of what one affirms.

But whatever we say about the cogito, EDT and CDT disagree about Moorean conjunctions, a classic example of self-defeat.Footnote 37 Recall Stubborn Stella, whose evidence supports that it will rain, but who refuses to believe it will rain. Stella’s evidence assigns a high probability to the Moorean conjunction It will rain, but I do not believe it will rain. But conditional on her affirming this proposition, it is likely she believes it, and thus likely she believes the first conjunct. So where r is that it will rain, and B(r) is that one believes it will rain:

$$0 \approx \Pr \left( {T|J\left[ {r \wedge \sim B\left( r \right)} \right]} \right) \ll \Pr \left( {r \wedge \sim B\left( r \right)} \right) \approx 1$$
(18)

Put another way, Stella’s affirming a Moorean conjunction epistemically guarantees the conjunction is false. According to EDT, that makes it irrational to affirm.

At the same time, affirming a Moorean conjunction does not metaphysically guarantee that it is false. To strictly metaphysically guarantee this, affirming a conjunction would need to metaphysically suffice for believing its conjuncts. Maybe it could fail to do so while still weakly metaphysically guaranteeing it, by reliably causing belief in the conjuncts, or by sufficing for believing them in some restricted set of worlds. Now it is at least arguable that believing a conjunction metaphysically guarantees believing its conjuncts. But even if this were granted, it would not mean that affirming the conjunction metaphysically guarantees believing it—at least, not if we accept the epiphenomenalist view proposed in Sect. 7.

All this causes trouble for Moore, at least for fans of CDT. For if affirming a Moorean conjunction does not even weakly metaphysically guarantee its falsity, then:

$$\Pr \left( {J\left[ {r \wedge \sim B\left( r \right)} \right] \Rightarrow T} \right) \approx \Pr \left( {r \wedge \sim B\left( r \right)} \right) \approx 1$$
(19)

Maybe this means we should reject Moore, and say genuine self-defeat is limited to propositions whose falsity is metaphysically, not just epistemically, guaranteed by one’s affirming them. I think the better course is to reject CDT, however. We could do so by accepting EDT, though to many its implications for Newcomb-like cases will be unpalatable. But there is another way, which preserves the best of CDT and EDT. Under a family of recent theories including my own GR, what matters are the probabilities for counterfactuals conditional on what options you adopt, such that:

$$\Pr \left( {T\left\| J \right.\left( \phi \right)} \right) = \Pr \left( {J\left( \phi \right) \Rightarrow T\left| J \right.\left( \phi \right)} \right) + \Pr \left( {J\left( \phi \right) \Rightarrow T\left| \sim \right.J\left( \phi \right)} \right)$$
(20)

So (4) can be satisfied when:

$$\Pr \left( {J\left( \phi \right) \Rightarrow T|J\left( \phi \right)} \right) + \Pr \left( {J\left( \phi \right) \Rightarrow T| \sim J\left( \phi \right)} \right) \ne \Pr \left( \phi \right)$$
(21)

And (21) is satisfied when ϕ is a Moorean conjunction.Footnote 38

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Barnett, D.J. Cogito and Moore. Synthese 202, 13 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04230-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04230-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation